Halloween!

Halloween is such an awesome holiday! As I said before, we go all out with our yard for Halloween. It's better than Christmas (frankly, Christmas is not a highly anticipated holiday for Mark or me because of the stress involved - it's become way too commercialized). But Halloween is awesome because you can dress up in crazy costumes and scare the pants off people - and it's socially acceptable!

I had the hardest time figuring out how to dress up Mira for Halloween. I think it was hard because she doesn't care - she's too young for trick-or-treating, so there wasn't a lot of incentive to get her all fixed up. I finally just accepted a hand-me-down costume from a friend and called it good. Plus, I remembered at the last moment that my mom gave me a cute little "scrubs" set at a baby shower so I stuck Mira in that one too. So we got some cute pictures:

Cute little ladybug!

I don't know why my parents set me up here, but whatever...

The zombie isn't nearly as fun as this bone.

Maybe this is what she'll be when she grows up...?

We can totally reattach this hand...

Of course who cares about a hand when there are leaves?

I didn't get a video of our yard this year but I took one last year and everything is pretty similar this year so here they are. It's hard to see what's going on with the nighttime one on the video (it's more obvious in person) but if you watch the daylight one first you can kinda get an idea of what's there.

And yes, Mark did all of this himself. He missed his calling.

Well, now for some more Mira picture overload:

Napping on the couch

Gotta love that smile!

She just keeps learning and learning! It's amazing to watch the lights go on in her head as she figures stuff out - and then she's so proud of herself! She crawls really fast now, but every few paces she'll stop and sit, survey her surroundings as if making sure she doesn't have a more interesting place to go explore, crawl a few more paces, stop and sit and look around, and so on. She's always on the go, until The Simpsons comes on TV and then she comes to a complete standstill and stares at the screen. That just proves she's our daughter. (In hindsight, a really cute Halloween costume for her would have been Maggie Simpson... oh well, maybe next year.) She is really good at pulling herself to a standing position and a lot of the time she'll only hold on with one hand (and then grin really big at you to make sure you've noticed how grown up she is). And she's starting to balance so well that sometimes she forgets to hold onto anything at all and she'll stand on her own, completely unsupported, for a few seconds! (Someone please tell me an 8 month old will normally do that!) She's starting to "dance" to music - she just bobs herself up and down but it's about the cutest thing I've ever seen! I'll try to get a video for my next post. Oh yeah, did I mention that she discovered the stairs and actually climbed them???????? First time she'd ever noticed the stairs goes completely not the way I pictured. I saw her pull herself up to standing using the top step and then stop, and I figured that would be it - I mean, those stairs look really daunting when you're little! She stood there for a second, moved her hands to the next step up, got her knees on the first step... moved her hands up a step... got her knees on the next step... It looked like she'd climbed those stairs a dozen times already! She got a little over halfway up and then got distracted looking over the banister at something and started to slip - luckily I was right behind her. But she wasn't scared at all, she wanted to go right back and try it again. Later on that night when I was at work she apparently zipped all the way up to the top of the stairs (and was halfway up by the time Mark could get over to her) and then figured out how to push open the door to the bathroom! Unbelievable what this girl does, I swear. Mark and I have called her a determined over-achiever (and one of us always adds in, "Just like her mom," because if you want 2 words to describe me, there they are).

I've put off writing about this because I wanted to make sure, but I'm pleased to announce (drumroll please) that Mira is sleeping through the night again! Yay!! That was a rough few months there. But her sleep schedule is different now. Before, I would keep her up until 10 or 11 at night, she'd sleep 8 or 9 hours, nap in the morning (pretty much right after she woke up so she really wasn't up for the day until 10 AM or so), then nap in the afternoon. Now she's asleep before 9 PM usually, and with very few exceptions doesn't wake up until 8 AM. Which is great, but she will not nap in the morning anymore (so it's going to be rough after night shifts now unless I have someone to watch her for a couple more hours), and she will have a 1-2 hour early afternoon nap. Well, I'll take it. She still has a few days here and there where she'll wake up around the time I go to bed (midnight-ish) but it's better than waking up every couple hours at night!

Her babbling has really taken off too. So many cute noises and sounds to figure out! I just love this babbling stage. She still says "mamamamama" but doesn't associate it with me yet. But she is saying "dadadada" now! So that's nice for Mark but he still feels left out because she cries when I leave the room but not when he leaves the room. I still say she'll be a daddy's girl before too long, and then I'll be able to get some stuff done! :) Here's a video of her babbling - for some reason she's the most talkative during mealtime.

I Win :)

Watch the video and then the title will make sense. :)

I know, I shouldn't gloat, but even though Mira doesn't know what she's saying, I can still say that I was her first word! It is pretty cool, especially since from really early on Mark would hold her and chant "Dadadadadadadada" to her to try and "influence" her. She's really getting into this babbling thing and it is so cute! I do feel kinda bad for Mark though - he feels left out and keeps saying things like he wishes Mira loved him as much as she loves me. Mira has turned out to be such a mama's girl. When I walk into the room she gets a huge grin on her face and flaps her arms up and down, and when I walk out of the room she cries. I thought Mira would be more of a daddy's girl (and I think if we give her some more time she will be) but right now Mark isn't any more exciting to her than the next person. My mom keeps telling me to enjoy it while I can and that when Mira decides she prefers someone else over me my feelings will be hurt and I'll be jealous. I can see how that would be true, and I have to keep reminding myself to enjoy being the center of her universe and appreciate being able to solve all of a person's troubles just by being there (because that sure won't last forever), but honestly... I have times when I really wish Mira would want her dad more than me so I can have some time to myself!! I love Mira to death, don't get me wrong, and I love spending time with her and cuddling her and everything... but really, sometimes I feel like I would give my arm to have her prefer someone else for just a few hours. Is that awful? (Actually, no, it's not, because I've talked to MANY mothers who feel the same way.)

 

Well, I guess it's time for another update. Have I really not updated this all month? Holy cow. Well, I have a pretty good excuse. Mira came down with her first illness a few weeks ago. :( I should feel pretty proud of myself that I was able to go 7 1/2 months before she came down with something - and luckily, it hasn't been too bad. I think what she had was a sore throat - she had a few days where she was acting lethargic and wasn't as playful and interactive and her voice was really hoarse and raspy. Of course the PICU nurse part of me started freaking out ("Oh my gosh she has croup she has epiglottitis she has RSV she's going to obstruct her airway aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh") but of course she was fine. She was still able to eat and drink okay and had plenty of wet diapers and her fontanel never got depressed (yep, I know too much). So she was just getting back to normal and then it hit again - now she's had a runny nose for over a week but she's still acting like herself. She's playing and babbling and doing all the things she normally does, just snotty. Well, I can handle that. However, I started feeling sick a week ago and every day since then I've felt a little bit worse. Yesterday was the first day I woke up and thought, "Hey, I actually feel somewhat less crummy today!" (So of course I screw things up and go to work - not my brightest idea.) I don't know what strain of killer cold this was but it's been brutal! And it's almost impossible to take care of yourself when you have a baby that's demanding your time and attention. The silver lining is I'm sicker than she is - I would much rather take the brunt of it. It's been a challenge to try to make sure she doesn't get sicker though - I've been trying to not breathe on her and avoid getting close to her... yeah that hasn't been going so well since most of the time she's not happy unless she's attached to my torso. But fingers crossed, I've been keeping up with nursing and giving her those antibodies.

Practicing her yoga poses

Textbook Adho Mukha Svanasana (downward dog pose)

And in the middle of all this illness crap, Mark goes and gives himself a head injury. I keep teasing him that he's the most accident-prone person I know and here's another example I can use against him. At least once a year he ends up in the emergency room from a self-inflicted injury. We do our yard up really fancy every year for Halloween, and part of it is a fence that is only up for the month. So Mark was pounding a metal stake into the ground with a metal ... I'm not sure what it's called but its purpose is to pound metal stakes into the ground. Anyway, it came down on his head. He lost consciousness for a moment and was a little disoriented and nauseous - yes, I freaked out. His head really didn't bleed that much, surprisingly. The doctors said there was only a little bit of bleeding in his brain but not to worry, it's only a concussion and he should be fine. Yeah, like that's supposed to be reassuring to an ICU nurse who sees massive head traumas all the time. But he really is fine, just a helluva headache on the right side of his head and stiff neck and shoulders (he actually gave himself whiplash), and 10 stitches. Last year his ER visit was from a mountain biking accident, and the year before that he sliced his leg open working with sheet metal. I'm about ready to tell Mark he needs to wear a helmet and a suit made of bubble wrap before he's allowed to leave the house! He was supposed to go back into the ER or Instacare today to get the stitches removed but we both figured it was faster and easier for me to remove them myself. One of the many benefits of living with a nurse. :)

Too bad his hair will cover this up.

Being sick has not slowed Mira down at all. She's crawling like a champ now! Her arms look a bit like she's doing the goose step when she crawls because she keeps her elbows straight and lifts them way out in front of her, but she gets the job done. She kinda drags her legs behind her but that's because we have hardwood floors, and she's getting more coordinated with her legs every day. Sometimes she crawls on her hands and feet. Her food menu is really expanding too. I've been giving her some finger foods like cut up bananas and teething crackers and yogurt melts and she just loves this concept of feeding herself. I'm playing with making my own baby food, since the jarred stuff is so expensive. So far I've tried it with apples and pears and it must taste good because she ate a ton. She's learned how to control which direction she travels in her walker (usually she ends up going backwards or sideways), although usually she just likes to bounce up and down in it.

Hmm, what can I get into now before Mommy catches me...?

Ooh, a doggy nose!

I can almost reach it...

Mission accomplished!

And ... oh no! ... she's learned to pull herself up to a standing position! That really happened fast. For a week or two she would pull herself up to her knees and then she wouldn't be sure how to get her feet under her, but a few days ago I walked into her room to get her from her nap and this is what I saw:

You can tell she's so proud of herself.

Contemplating some mischief, I'm sure

The crazy thing is she doesn't seem to get stuck in a standing position - once she's decided she's done standing, she just sits down and off she goes. And she'll even stand with just one hand holding onto something too! It's so hard for me not to hover and catch her the second she starts to topple. I hate the idea of her falling and hurting herself, but she has to learn. The really hard part has been when she does fall to not rush to her and pick her up and start making a fuss over her. I try to just laugh and distract her and most of the time she just looks startled for a second, then she forgets she fell and goes back to exploring. So when she does fall and cry I figure it really did hurt - but even then she only cries for a couple seconds then she starts fussing because I'm holding her and she wants to be crawling around some more. The next thing will be cruising - and it's not far off.

Classic Mira expression

A lot of people have been asking me what Mira is going to be for Halloween. I really should have been all over this sooner - but I haven't even been able to think about what I'd like to do! I have a couple boring ideas ... I kinda feel like I don't have the time to put into creating something really awesome... but she won't even start to care about it until next year anyway. This year it's just about the photo ops. I'll have photos up in the near future, plus pics of our house once it's all done up for Halloween. It's pretty awesome. Stay tuned!

I Just Can't Keep Up...

It has come to my attention that there were some technical difficulties with the bath time video from the last post - so here it is again. :)

It's crazy how just a few days can go past and babies can go through so many changes! Mira has finally decided that she loves the doorway jumper. Lately when you help her stand up she starts jumping (or trying to jump) so the doorway jumper is great now that she's figured it out. Before when we put her in it she would just try to walk around in it. She's also learning how to clap her hands. Her version of clapping has been to flap her arms around but a couple days ago she started to bring her hands forward when she flapped, and eventually her hands make contact in the middle. So cute! She'll only "clap" a couple times and then she gets fascinated with her hands and will clasp and wring them together and examine them very closely. And then it's on to the next thing. She's just a busy, curious little explorer! And still as happy and sweet as ever. She's not really babbling yet but she does like to laugh and coo, and when she's really tired she hums.

I feel like she's gone through another growth spurt. I was looking at her today and thought to myself, "Holy crap, she's ginormous!" People keep making the comment that she's really long for her age. She certainly does seem tall. So hard to believe that I used to be able to hold her tucked under my arm like a football!

Oh and some more big developments in Mira news: she can crawl now! Last week she was just "lurching" around but a couple days ago she figured it out! She's only doing it for a short distance right now and she still likes to rock back and forth a lot but just give her some time and she's definitely got it. She'll crawl more if she's chasing something she shouldn't be getting her hands on, like an expensive watch or anything electronic. At the same time she seemed to figure out how to go from her hands and knees back to a sitting position. It's so exciting! I know I've been saying that I don't want her to be mobile but since she's figured it out I guess I ought to encourage her. Everyone keeps saying that she'll definitely be walking by the time she's a year old. I hope not but the way she's going that's certainly how things are looking.

Here are a bunch of videos. I know videos are more time consuming than pictures but I always feel like pictures don't capture the whole story. Here's one of her crawling.

 Here's one of her jumping.

And here's what happened when we gave her a pickle to suck on.

I was really surprised about the pickle. I thought the taste would put her off but she LOVED it and screamed when we had to take it away from her because she started biting off chunks of it. The interesting thing about this is to hear my parents talk about how similar Mira is to how I was as a baby. They keep saying that when I was Mira's age I also rocked back and forth a lot, I loved to jump, and I LOVED pickles. It's so neat to see that she is, in fact, my daughter. :)

So despite Mark recovering from pneumonia, last weekend we ran the Dirty Dash at Soldier Hollow. For those of you not from Utah, Soldier Hollow is where the cross country skiing events were held during the 2002 Winter Olympics in SLC. If I were into cross country skiing I would have loved this place - but I'm more into downhill. But anyway, the Dirty Dash is a mud run - a race that they make you run a 10K or 5K through the mud and all sorts of obstacles and the point is to get as dirty and muddy as possible. There's no way you could run this just to get through it quickly and make good time. There were THOUSANDS of people there to race, and everyone would get bottle necked at all the obstacles so really it was just for fun. And oh boy, was it ever fun! It was a lot more fun than we thought it was going to be! My dad and sister Sara got to watch Mira and try to get some action shots.

Mark and I ran with a team of people from PCMC (my work), and our team's name was Beauties and the Beasts and the men had to dress like women and vice versa. One of the best parts of a mud run is the costumes - you dress up in these really wild and creative costumes that purposefully get trashed by the end of the race. There were some awesome ones there - fairies with wings, people in cow suits with udders, there was a group of men wearing baby carriers complete with baby dolls strapped in, women in huge tutus - it was crazy! I really think Mark had one of the best costumes in the whole race. So many people would call out to him on the race and say things like, "Looking good, Granny!" And he totally played up the part too. And the best part is he started the race with a sunhat and a purse, and finished the race with a sunhat and a purse! While we were getting ready before the race started he overheard someone say something to the effect of, "Yeah, good luck finishing with the purse!" So since he heard that of course he became bound and determined to finish the race with that darn purse! And he kicked my butt too, even with sick lungs he probably would have finished the race an hour before I did if he wasn't nice enough to stick with me. (I think he got worried that I got trampled after we got separated early in the race.)

They had some really fun obstacles - swamps of mud to slog or swim through, climb up ropes while slipping in mud, crawl through pipes half full of mud (while getting blasted with snow-making machines), climb over hay bales and wooden fences, a huge Slip 'N' Slide - someone had a lot of fun figuring out this course! We started off doing the 10K course but ended up cutting across partway through so we probably ended up doing a 7.5K or something like that. It was exhausting too! It didn't feel so bad right afterwards but the next day we could barely move! I got some pretty awesome scrapes and bruises, which is how you know it was fun. It was so worth it though and now we're excited for the next one (which probably won't be until next year). My sister Sara wants to run the next one too. I'm already formulating our team's name and costumes in my head. :)

Here are some pictures of race day.

Mark and me before the race.

The start of the race.

If you look closely you can see Mark and me running through the mud.

"Granny" after the race.

I'm impressed my 'stache stayed on the whole time!

We survived!

Very fun day!

7 Months Old!

My excuse for taking so long to get another post up is "technical difficulties." Our wireless router is retarded and we couldn't use the internet for a couple of weeks. Just so everyone knows - Cricket freaking sucks. I'm so ready to switch carriers so we can have a reliable internet connection. Anyway, it's working now, so I'm finally getting around to another post. Mark has also been sick with pneumonia the last few weeks and it's really taken a lot out of him. It just started off with a URI (upper respiratory infection) and traveled into his lungs. He's prone to getting pneumonia since his lungs are trashed and have lots of scar tissue from previous infections (his first time was when he was a little baby), but this one has been pretty bad. He's been through 2 rounds of antibiotics and he still gets winded walking up the stairs so I don't know what's up. Hopefully we can get it figured out soon.

First, let me just say THANK YOU for the support I got from everyone after my last post. It really did make me feel a ton better to read the comments and talk to everyone. I have some great friends and lots of support, so here's a big general thanks to everyone, it really did mean a lot! :)

Eating is tough work...

Since we're on the topic, the sleeping issue is getting better. Mira still has some nights when she is up a lot (like last night, or any night when I have to be at work during the day) but it's not nearly like it used to be. She usually goes to sleep somewhere between 10 PM or midnight (I know that's late but that's on purpose since I work night shifts), sometimes she wakes up at 2 or 3 AM to eat, then again around 7 or 8 AM, and then is ready to get up with me at about 11 AM or even noon sometimes. Works great with my sleep schedule so I hope it sticks. No child of mine will learn that getting up before 9 AM is acceptable! :) I go into her room to feed her when she wakes up in the middle of the night since she'll usually nurse for about 15 minutes and then she's asleep again so she stays asleep in the crib. When she wakes up at 7 or 8 in the morning I'll bring her into bed with me so we can both sleep longer. At least it's a routine that I'm okay with. It's so much better than when we first had her sleep in her crib! It would literally take an hour to get her to stay asleep in the crib. You'd have to rock her to sleep, make sure she was in a good deep sleep, carefully put her in the crib, she would wake up and cry, so you'd pick her up and rock her for 10 or 15 minutes until she got in a good deep sleep, carefully put her in the crib, she'd wake up and cry... repeat... repeat... It was rough. I have this lavender and chamomile scented pillow mist that I sometimes use to help me fall asleep and I've tried it with her a few times on her sheets... doesn't seem to hurt anyway!

This is what happens when you leave blankets within grabbing distance

 I just can't believe Mira is 7 months old already! The time is just flying past. And she seems to learn something new every day. She hit some big milestones again since the last post. She can now sit up by herself - yay, what a big girl! She figured it out overnight it seems. I would set her down in the playpen and she'd sit for a few minutes and topple over, but one day she kept sitting, and sitting, and sitting, and just sat there playing with her toys like she was a pro at it. Since then it seems like she's been happier playing on her own longer (meaning not attached to my hip constantly), but she's still definitely a mommy's girl and needs LOTS of attention from me. Poor Mark feels so left out that when Mira's tired or upset she isn't happy until I hold her. It is kind of nice to know that you're that wanted, and there's nothing like walking into the room and your baby smiles and laughs and flaps her arms up and down because she's so happy to see you. But it would be nice to have a break once in awhile. I try to remind myself that when she's 16 she'll hate my guts and will try to avoid me at all costs so I should enjoy this while it lasts.

She has very good posture.

The other thing she figured out how to do was crawling. It's more like a lurch than a crawl right now but she is definitely mobile. That happened really fast too. One day she figured out how to push up on her hands and knees, the next couple days she was rocking back and forth and would either scoot backwards and get pissed off or rock forward so hard she'd face plant. Then the next day she was traveling forward! It's exciting but I was hoping it would be awhile before she figured this one out. Now we definitely have to baby proof. :( She is very determined and it's fun to watch the wheels turning in her head as she attempts different ways of getting from Point A to Point B. Yesterday she tried lifting her hand up off the ground and putting it in front of her to pull her forward, which is how crawling works best, but she only did it with her right hand so it didn't get her very far. She also does the yoga pose Downward Dog, which is really cute but as she's figuring out, doesn't get her very far.

 Here's a video of her "lurching" around. Notice what object she goes for. :)

 

I keep thinking she's getting ready to cut another tooth because she's been cranky the last couple of days and particularly drooly but nothing yet. We must be ready for one soon because it's been 2 months since the last one came in. I'm hoping for some new teeth soon so we can start trying those teething crackers. I guess she can try gumming those but I'd feel better if she had some more teeth first.

Of course she's still such a happy baby! When we go grocery shopping she, for some reason, always starts laughing and giggling as we wander through the store. I'm not sure why shopping is so funny but it sure is cute. I still get asked all the time if she's always this good, and of course the answer is always that she is. I really lucked out with this one. She also likes blowing raspberries and loves it when you sing interactive songs with her. Her new favorite is "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and still likes Patty Cake. She still loves to have help to stand up and she just looks so proud of herself! I can't imagine what it'll be like when she can stand by herself.

Here's some more bath time fun.

I Thought Parenting Was Supposed to be Easy...

WARNING - if you want to see cute pictures and videos of Mira, skip ahead to the end and ignore the wordy crap. If you feel like getting inside my head, keep reading. :)

This post is going to be more reflective than picture overload or Mira updates but what the hey, maybe someone will be interested in what I'm saying. If anything I can look back on this in a couple of years and snicker at myself for thinking I'm having a hard time now.

So I've been really struggling with what to do about Mira's night waking and how hard it is for me to get her to take a nap during the day. I talk to friends who talk about how quickly they got their babies on a schedule and how important it is to get the baby in a routine and they never let their babies do this and so on and so on and I just worry and worry that if I don't do the same thing now, Mira will be really difficult to handle in the near future. I worry that I'll do something to scar her for life (more than a parent usually scars their child for life, that is), and I've been so stressed about how to approach this that I've lost sleep and shed some tears over it. I've worried that when she wakes up at night and I bring her to bed with me that she'll learn only to sleep in bed with me and I've imagined the worst sorts of screaming temper tantrums when she's finally banned from our room. I've felt like an incompetent, useless, worthless excuse for a mother, I've felt so overwhelmed, I've felt angry at myself for my indecisiveness, and I've wished someone would just tell me what I'm supposed to do that will be guaranteed to work. I've read and heard all sorts of advice on what to do, from giving her increasing amounts of time by herself to help her self soothe, all the way to just letting her cry it out. I've been exhausted and tired, not just from the night waking but from my stress level. For awhile I've felt like I was handling this by myself, because when Mark and I are both home I was still the only one to get Mira when she woke up. That's changed since Mark became aware that I need to not be the only one doing this - that's helped tremendously.

So after weeks of agonizing and stressing and worrying and feeling angry and resentful that my perfect baby who used to sleep through the night has regressed and I can't seem to fix it, I had a couple of "eureka" moments. The first one came a few nights ago when I was rocking Mira back to sleep and I was thinking about how fast she's growing up and I had this sudden thought: "When she's bigger and I don't need to rock her to sleep anymore, I'm really going to miss this." Well, that's all it took. My emotional outlook has done a complete 180 since I realized that. I had this epiphany that life is short, Mira will only be a baby for a year of her entire life (and half of that year is already over) and before I know it, she'll be too "big and grown up" to get hugs from Mommy anymore. I realized that I absolutely have to savor every second of this baby time, even if it means I'm more sleep deprived, because once it's gone, it really will be gone, and I would just hate it if I looked back on this time of her life and felt regret that I didn't spend more time cuddling her when she was little. After all, it's not like hugging or cuddling or rocking your baby will do anything detrimental to them.

So that part got cleared up. The next thing I did - and I'm kind of surprised I didn't think of this sooner - I asked my parents what they did with us when they encountered this problem. Funny how your parents suddenly become geniuses when you become a parent yourself. I figured that whatever they said they did with us I should probably try myself, since I would say my sisters and I are about as normal and well-adjusted as you can get and we have great relationships with both parents.

I asked my dad what they would do when we woke up in the middle of the night - namely, did they ever let us cry it out or did they come into our room? "Oh, we never let you girls cry it out," he said. Somehow I knew that would be the answer. If we needed our parents, they always came to us. I've always had this innate sense that no matter what my parents will always be there for me and that may be part of it.

Next I asked my mom what she suggested that I do. Her opinion was that she doesn't understand why there's this push to get kids independent so soon. When we were babies, if we woke up crying she would take us into bed with her - which is pretty much exactly what I've been doing. She said that it's completely normal for a baby to need emotional and physical comforting from its parents and it doesn't make sense to her to deprive a baby of comforting when it's needed, just to make sure that the baby becomes more "independent." That will come with time. In fact, she said, she thinks that the more physical bonding time the baby gets when it's little will probably make them more prepared sooner to be on their own that way. The more you push away to encourage independence, the more likely the child will be clingy for longer and the more likely s/he will feel some sort of void. To me, this made a lot of sense. Kinda like how if you push a kid to be potty trained before they're ready it just makes things worse and accomplishes nothing. When they're ready, it'll happen. And my mothering instincts tell me that if my baby needs me, I should go to her instead of listening to her cry. And I have to say that I feel that whatever my parents did with me, worked, so their methods deserve serious consideration.

So the bottom line, according to my mom, is that "Having a baby is definitely inconvenient for you. But it's only a phase. And the more time you put into it now, the more she gets out of it."

So I guess I'll be downloading some good books onto my iPhone to read in the middle of the night while I'm rocking Mira back to sleep, but if I can just remember why I'm doing this, I think I can handle it.

Okay, enough introspective crap. Time for some good stuff! The other night I gave Mira a bubble bath for the first time. I took a handful of bubbles and blew on them - and this is what she thought.

I can hold my feet AND clap them together!

Playing in the front yard.

She is sooooooo close to sitting on her own! Okay I guess she can sit on her own for a little while but you still have to watch her because sometimes she forgets that she can't just throw herself backwards anymore. She's almost got it though! She keeps trying to scoot forward - luckily she hasn't figured that out quite yet. She gets really mad though because she scoots backwards and can't figure out why. She can pass objects from one hand to another and her version of clapping her hands is flapping her arms up and down. It's so funny and cute. I'm trying to introduce a sippy cup and sometimes she gets the hang of it and sometimes she just wants to use it as a teething toy.

I just love how happy she is! People have already been suggesting (not very subtly) that we should have another baby just because of how cute Mira is. My response is that having one cute well-behaved baby is no guarantee that any subsequent baby will be either. In fact, having kids is sort of like gambling in Vegas - you should stop while you're ahead! Well and another reason is that if I were to have another kid, I would want to wait awhile - like 4-ish years - so that I could spend plenty of time with the new child without as much competition from a needy 2 or 3 year old. And I know Mark would never go for that. So I figure this way I can focus all my time and resources on my one child, and the research says only children are just as well-adjusted socially than kids with siblings - the bonus being there won't be siblings for her to get into fights with.

Here's a video of her clapping her feet together. The crickets are from a mobile on the side of her crib.

And some more pics...

Most beautiful baby ever

Hmm, my legs appear to be crooked...

Yup, I still love to smile and grab my feet!

I guess the bottom line is that everyone has a different way of parenting and whatever works for you, works for you. As long as the child grows up to be happy and well-adjusted, the rest doesn't really matter.

6 Months Old!

Last Friday Mira turned 6 months old. AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH HOW DID THAT HAPPEN????? Half a year old - damn that really happened fast. Unbelievably fast. Everyone would say to me, "It goes by so fast!" I would always think, "Okay, so it goes by really fast." Uh, yeah, it REALLY does go by way too fast. I think I have whiplash from watching everything fly by so fast. I look back on pictures from even just a couple months ago and it's amazing to see the amount of change that Mira has gone through in such a short amount of time.

Eating is so fun!

Insert food here

Six months of course means another well-baby checkup, which she had yesterday. Mira now weighs 16 lbs 0 oz (49th percentile), length 26 inches (58th percentile), head circumference 16.1 inches (11th percentile). You'd never guess that she was SGA (small for gestational age) when she was born - she's catching up really well! But then all you have to do is look at her awesome fat thighs to realize she's been gaining weight like a champ. :) And of course a well-baby checkup also means vaccinations. There's always a part of me that feels like I'm torturing my child by getting her vaccinated, and then I think about how much worse it would be for her to actually get sick with one of these diseases and I figure it's definitely worth it. Plus she's always done really well with getting her shots. I've always given her Tylenol an hour before we go in, and then she screams as she gets the shots and as soon as I pick her up she's fine and that's the end of it. The nurse at the doctor's office can never believe how good Mira is and reminds me every time that I'm really lucky.

We're adding on more solids and she's still enjoying eating. She really loves peaches - duh. She's a little unsure about green beans and makes these really funny faces when she tastes them but she keeps opening her mouth for more so I think she'll decide she likes them. Although I don't really blame her for making faces - those green beans look pretty icky. I'll probably start introducing meats pretty soon. Those look really gross too but hopefully they taste better than they look.

And now - ohboyohboyohboyohboy - more professional pictures! I'm so impressed and excited with how well these came out! Sorry for the picture overload but I just couldn't decide which ones I liked best so I put all my faves on here. Ashley Schoenfeld is amazing and so worth the money!

And that's still not even half of them! I'm so glad we did these.

Mira still loves to roll all over the place and she tries to scoot forward but just ends up looking like an inchworm (and traveling about that far). She'll be figuring out crawling before we know it. She can't quite sit on her own yet but she's so close. Her favorite toys are teddy bears and toys like rattles that make noise. She loves the cats and gets so excited whenever she sees them and tries to grab them, which would explain why they've learned to run away whenever they see her. Our challenge right now is still sleep. She did sleep through the night last night but I'm wondering if it's because she got her vaccinations during the day. A couple nights ago she was up every hour and a half again. Ugh, so frustrating! We're also working on getting her used to sleeping in her crib during the day for naptime - which is hard because the window in her room is south-facing so it's so bright during the day. She can be asleep and the second I walk into her room to put her down she pops awake and she's ready to play. But if I lay her down on our bed she stays asleep - I'm guessing because we have the window completely covered in our room so it's really dark all the time. So maybe if we get some dark curtains in he room she'll nap better. I'm still not sure what to do about her night waking, especially since she seems to be waking up because she's hungry. I wish there was a manual that came with parenthood, I hate the guesswork and second-guessing and wondering if I'm doing the right thing or if I'm scarring her for life!